If you want to identify someone's character examine the friends he sits with

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Dirty Hit Pieces

So Rich Robinson wants to talk about what other people *might* do with their money. He wants to make ludicrous suppositions about collusion that doesn’t exist. He wants to ram ridiculous FPPC complaint after FPPC complaint into the system, praying one of these accusations gets some traction. My understanding is it’s another laundry list of wishful thinking. Rich doesn’t seem to have much of a plan to defend the actions of his “popular sheriff” over the last few years.

While the Sheriff hangs out with criminals, the jails fall down around our ears because she shifts people in and out of AB109 positions pretending she has done everything they could to improve things; her secret cabal, “Sheriff’s Advisory Board”, is having “fundraisers” on the taxpayers dime, enjoying helicopter rides like the carousel at the fair, for a “project” they’ve supposedly been working on for a decade or more with nearly zero results to the taxpayer on that particular project; while she claims we has no money to do more, yet asks the county to approve a third Assistant Sheriff at $250K salary + benefits even as her staff is down nearly 10% and working with office equipment that is turn of the century; with her captains driving around in shiny new muscle cars with an overall price tag of somewhere around half a million dollars, while deputies hope they make it to a call in what they’re driving some days — with all this, the “media” in this town wants to turn a blind eye or wallow in the shallow end of the pool with desperate people casting desperate stones.

They want to talk about FPPC practices, so let us do that for a day or two.

Remember some time ago I mentioned Rich Robinson’s, Laurie Smith’s favorite political consultant, favorite tactic was last minute attacks leaving people no time to respond? Remember I told you the only way to circumvent this is for all of us to make the effort to walk precincts, hand out materials, post signs and get Kevin Jensen‘s name and reputation out there?

Well, feeling a bit like a naked mole rat these days, tunneling through FPPC filings to see all the gray area tactics, I just feel kind of dirty, but here is why we need to be out on the street talking about Kevin Jensen at every opportunity.

There are two ways to file your FPPC filings with the county. You can be up front and file electronically and everything is searchable to the public. Or you can paper file and anyone who wants to know anything about you has to endure the inconvenience of requesting and getting copies of these documents. People in general are less inclined to go get copies — and I want to thank my sources profusely for picking these up and getting them through to me.

I started digging around and found mention in several places of something called the “Santa Clara County Public Safety Alliance,” which Rich Robinson is the “spokesperson” (about half way down the page, ) for. I found online that this organization appears to have only filed into existence with the county on November 1, 2005, just 6 days before an election. I found that just 4 days after they filed with the county, people started receiving a questionable flyer complete with a quote from Sheriff Smith to voters against someone who was running, not against Sheriff Laurie Smith, but her power base — the candidate felt Cupertino should no longer contract with the Santa Clara County Sheriff for law enforcement needs. The quote from the Sheriff? Well strangely enough she states, “a few people will say and do anything to win public office….It is clear from his own words, Raj Abhyanker does not belong in public office.” Don’t you love the internet? Nothing is gone forever, way back machine strikes again. Yes Sheriff, SOME people will say and do anything to win public office… and those people do not belong in public office. Which is why we believe it’s time for you to go.

The timing of this literally left the candidate with 2-3 days to respond to the flyer. The stealth tactics used in filing left the perpetrators anonymous for the immediate moment as well. And a PAC filing just days before an election and launching dirty flyers? Did the money appear magically? The flyer was instantly ready by magic? No PAC filing, no requirement to file late donors, expenditures. Interesting… is that legal? Who knows, and in this town who cares? The intellectual curiosity of the media is nil around Silicon Valley, they report what they’re fed, and they are well fed by these people. Unfortunately because all this was in 2006, that puts this incident outside the 5 year zone; they’re safe for now. Honestly, I don’t know if this was illegal, but exactly the tactics that Rich Robinson is infamous for in Cupertino, even as he whines about other people spending money on his blog while simultaneously claiming people should get to spend whatever they want in blog on SJI.

Rich you should take some of your own advice, “People should play the game fair.” Clearly, fair is only in your vocabulary when you’re pointing fingers.

Rich Robinson wins, what he doesn’t tell you is he wins with dirty politics, not by having candidates that we necessarily want in office; he works in the shadows of legality to make the opponent look bad.

Yes, we all know Rich Robinson’s name and who he is. He proudly proclaims under every specious blog post he makes that he is currently working on the campaign of Laurie Smith. But there are two other names plastered all over the filings of this oddly named group, perhaps less familiar to some of us: James Campagna and Christopher Schumb. Both are long time supporters and apparently friends of the Sheriff as well as part of this “Public Safety Alliance.” All of them have supported the Sheriff’s campaigns, all of them have donated to the Sheriff in one form or another, sometimes in multiple forms. At least one of them is a member of the Sheriff’s Advisory Board.

Here are these three political stooges hiding behind an organization called the “Public Safety Alliance” though on the face of things, these three men have no direct ties or concerns to public safety other than their own personal political interests… which seem to be tied very tightly to Sheriff Laurie Smith. Generally groups using the name “Public Safety Alliance” actually have some real, tangible alliance to public safety outside of political donations.

Just months later, this same group dropped more than $50,000 into Delores Carr’s campaign (a little less than half way down the page, “Despite entering the race relatively late, [Carr] raised more money than her opponents — and benefited from a $51,430 independent expenditure by a political committee called the Public Safety Alliance. “). It makes you wonder, is this why Delores Carr stayed silent as the Sheriff threw her under the bus for the De Anza case? Despite the fact that the sheriff’s office failed to conduct a thorough and timely investigation because of the unwillingness to pay overtime to the appropriate investigators, Carr never said a word in that regards.

This dirty little semi-secret of a PAC has not disappeared, they are still in existence today, and still filing paper filings in an attempt to stay under the radar. They have kept up with their filings… sort of. They have been fined for late filings as you can see in the below attachments, getting the first fine waived, but were, in a later violation just last year, reported to the DOR in 2013 for failing to pay their fines as you can see on the last page of this document by the Citizen’s Advisory Commission on Elections. SCC PSA failed to pay files of $540 after repeated dunning letters. Ironic for people who were just dancing over how Kevin Jensen put something on the wrong line of one of his filings.

Yet checking on the county filing system, there they are with their 2/14 filing, in paper of course, just like they’re supposed too, in time for the Sheriff’s race. But no indication they paid their $540 fine. Talk about blatant.

Keep your eyes out, it’s my understanding that the there is a FPPC complaint that is going to be filed some time in the next 48 hours that is going to be very interesting. And it has nothing to do with accidentally putting something on the wrong line or the filer being clueless in regards to what order months fall in. I’m sure the local blogs of insider hacks that like to portray themselves as the local media around this town won’t be running to cover this upcoming filing.

So, now that you can see how important it is, please get over to Kevin Jensen‘s campaign page to volunteer or check out his Facebook page for the next precinct walking or get in touch with the DSA/CPOA PAC and volunteer for their efforts to get out the word it’s time for new leadership — Kevin Jensen for Sheriff.

PS — Herhold, I really think that Rich’s foot-in-mouth gaffe attacking 2 leading victim’s rights advocates should really count as one of those 4 or 5 bad interviews… by my count we’re up to at least 3, maybe 4 now, aren’t we? 🙂